every action weither good or bad has a consequence.

It all boils down to weither u think the empire should be held responsible for the terms and the actions those terms they agreed upon has inflicted on its provendences.

But I dont thinks its best to compare tes5 with holy Roman empire, more like the empire as chamberlain and the thalmor as nazis. Chamberlan gave up countrys to prevent a war and even agreed to some outragious treatys. He may have thought he was doing the right thing since the countrys hadnt at the time got over the war, but looking back his good actions had actually caused more harm.

The premise and the OP are are so completely absurd it's borderline insane.

For one thing the Roman Empire had basically nothing to do with the Holy Roman Empire. And the saying is that "the Holy Roman Empire was not holy, roman or an empire". The Holy Roman Empire was established around 800 AD. The roman empire (in the west) fell over 300 years before that.

And equating the Thalmor with anything in the real world is just wrong and sometimes offensive.

I agree with you to a great extent...conflating the real world with any aspect of Skyrim is absurd. Yet our own experiences and history are the only guidance we have to judge and make moral (?) judgements.

That said, it defies the whole purpose of a game...ostensibly to entertain and take us to "another place" where the concerns of real life don't exist.

Ideally we would accept the precepts of the game...as the developers wrote them...accept Ulfrics words as spoken, without looking for ulterior or malign motives. And drop all this transposed modern nonsense about racism and, maybe, even exercise a bit of tolerance for a culture and a time that is very different from our own.

Or it sounds like containment in the 50s. See why I hate historical parallels? Anyone who invokes Munich ever again should be shot, in my opinion. Chamberlain singlehandedly ruined every foreign policy debate for centuries to come.

The problem with there is that the 50's represent a whole new paragdigm in human history--total destruction...at out own hands. And at the same time, while neither side really wanted that, they still fought proxy wars and engaged in brinkmanship (Cuban missle crisis), which, if it had gone unchallenged would probably have led to a more direct confrontation.

So while you say "containment" most people say "cold war." Point is people still died...and in a very real sense it is still going on. It wasn't like putting the genie in the bottle.

Thalmor is the new nontechnology advance dwemers?

Although oddly enough appeasemant worked quite well for the British. Radar was developed, the rearmament of the RAF in the late 30s meant we were a lot better prepared when war came

Even though I believe that the civil war isn't based on anything from real life, and even if it was it is probably influenced by the Roman-Germanic wars (as you said), I have an additional theory.

Considering that Skyrim and the nords are heavily influenced of Scandinavian/norse culture, I suggest that maybe the civil war has it's roots within Scandinavian history as well. After thinking about it, this is the moment of Scandinavian history (in a nutshell) that I find most similar with the civil war of Skyrim:

In 1397, the Kalmar Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmar_Union) was formed between the Scandinavian nations and was lead by Denmark. However, Sweden were not happy with the union and wanted to rule themselves, which lead to that Sweden started a rebellion. The rebellion was destroyed by Denmark under the king Christian II, and they held the infamous Stockholm Bloodbath. After this, Sweden started another rebellion led by Gustav Vasa (which would be the real life version of Ulfric Stormcloak I suppose). The war he led, the Swedish War of Liberation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_War_of_Liberation) ended in victory, and Gustav vasa became the king of Sweden.

The similarities I see with this and Skyrim is that it's a war of liberation between rebels and an "empire" (I'm not sure if the kalmar Union qualifies as an empire), Skyrim seems to be heavily influenced of Scandinavia, and the war is between a red army (the empire/Denmark) vs. the blue rebels (Stormcloaks/Sweden) (If you didn't know, the Danish flag is mainly red and the Swedish flag is mainly blue).


But that's just my alternative theory though.

Well if Skingrad looks like Transylvania then that would make it the Byzantine Empire.


Charlemagne would like to have a word with you. ;p

Try to realize that Skyrim has had a written history for over ten years, while the devs don't know anything about Scandinavian history. Skyrim's story comes from the former, not the latter.

Much like the Hitler-Stalin Pact, although it was the West's reticence to oppose Hitler that forced that policy to begin with.

To be fair, Britain was inferior militarily to Germany at that point and was in dire need of time to bring through much needed equipment and men if they intended any kind of opposition to the sweep of nazi power. Which is what they did, hence why the RAF had Spitfires and Hurricanes available at the outbreak of war. Though only due to the foresight of a handful of visionary men who realised that it was inevitable that we would go to war.

Exactly Stalin's reasoning. Although the inevitability of war with Hitler was pretty much common knowledge for anyone left of Chamberlain or right of the Rhine.

Yeah but Stalins methods were entirely different. He sacraficed entire armies just to buy time re-arming and re-manning after the outbreak of war on the eastern front. Thats extremely cold and calous actions that only a real "bag of cats" insane dictator would be able to do.

I don't know why a fictional game like Elder Scrolls always gets compared to real history. Skyrim is at war with Skyrim its political infighting, the Empire is just trying to keep control of the Empire, and the Thalmor are all going to be murdered with axes. Or at least I hope it's axes that's how I would do it. I don't understand why the dunmer haven't tried to throw in with the Bosmer/Altmer alliance.

Because all good fictional stories have basis in reality, especially when they involve familiar theme's and architypes.

The Forsworn are the celtic pagans.
Religiously the Stormcloaks worship the Nine Divines with Talos as its Chief.
Religiously the Empire worships the Eight Divines and Talos in secret.

Er, no. The emperors just called themselves Roman emperors and tried to take on the mantle of great epic rulers but it was for show. What is now Germany was a patchwork of principalities and baronies and whether or not an emperor really had influence was hit or miss. Culturally, Rome's successor was the Byzantine empire, not the HRE.

Ya don't say? I always thought Bethesda based Skyrim on Africa, interesting find. And Imperials are Romans? Damn you're good.

Well said, It was the Byzantine empire that kept Rome alive for more then a thousand years.

I wouldn't say he 'sacrificed armies.' He fought back (after Hitler invaded, what exactly was he supposed to do?) and the Nazis won.

If you were to say that he sacrificed armies in a pointless invasion of Finland, that would be more accurate. But there again, he didn't sacrifice them, they just got beaten.

...because he murdered the entire officer corps. Which is the real "bag of cats" move in all this. But his foreign policy was rather better than the West's.

Because of the Thalmor I have chosen not to take sides. On the one hand the Thamor have brainwashed Ulfric, and while he believes he is fighting to free Skyrim from both the Thalmor and the Imperials he is playing into the hands of the Thalmor. Conversely, General Tullis and the Imperials is seemingly a Thalmor sympathizer, who probably sides with the enemy for his on personal gain. (He certainly has no love for the Nords.) Plus, the Impareials would rather sit on their behinds, licking the boots of the Thalmor, to avoid a confrontation. ["Oh well! What can you do? It is what it is!?!") Therefore, my enemy without question is the Thalmor.

The OP's comparison does hold in this respect- the Holy Roman Empire was, as the saying goes, not holy, not Roman and not an empire. The Mede empire is also a sham- it's not really an empire anymore, and the Alessian pact and power of the Septim line is gone so the dragons they wear are just for show.

Everyone keep debating real world history to disparage the thread's thesis.

Correct

Explain yourself, please?